Intel office PC $500 for Mom

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bradenthefirst

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Dec 25, 2012
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Looking at building an office-type PC for my mother, who will only use it for email, web, and looking at thousands of digital pictures of the grandkids.

Wishlist: ~$500 budget
Intel CPU - i3? i5?
4GB memory minimum, ideally 8
Plenty of USB ports, ideally some USB 3.0 on front of case with header on motherboard
1 TB internal HD
Optical drive
I like the Corsair 200R case as I have built with that before

Maybe no discreet GPU? Will the built-in graphics on i3 or i5 handle basic office tasks? There will be no gaming or video editing on this machine.

Thanks!

 
Solution
I built a similarly-purposed machine for my Mom a while back, using an Athlon II X2 255. She never complained about its speed (although I since upgraded it with a Phenom II X3 720BE anyway, just because I had it).
The point being, a Pentium 860G would be all the CPU she needs. Some web sites are accelerated, so it might be worth throwing a HD6450 in there. One of those efficient 300W-350W Seasonic PSUs ought to do for it. Round it out with 4GB-8GB of RAM, and a case she will like.

bradenthefirst

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Over budget, good places to cut costs?

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($199.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($87.55 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($47.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($72.98 @ Outlet PC)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 430W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($51.98 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($18.98 @ Outlet PC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.98 @ Outlet PC)
Total: $619.44
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-03-08 09:15 EST-0500)
 

michxymi

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I know that you said Intel but I would check this option too from AMD!


Micro ATX case with USB III in front panel

COUGAR Spike Black Steel / Plastic MicroATX Mini Tower Gaming Case

80+ Bronze Semi Modular PSU

Corsair CX Series 430 Watt ATX/EPS Modular 80 PLUS Bronze ATX12V/EPS12V 384 Power Supply CX430M

A8 5600K Quad Core APU with build in graphics, more than enough for what you need!

AMD A8-5600K APU 3.6Ghz Processor AD560KWOHJBOX

A great motherboard with lots of native SATA III & USB III ports (two for front panel header) and upgradeable to the newest APUs, as AMD will keep FM2 socket!

ASRock FM2A75 Pro4-M FM2 AMD A75 (Hudson D3) HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

8GB high speed memory

Patriot Memory Viper 3 Series Venom Red DDR3 8GB 1866MHz (PC3 15000) Memory Kit PV38G186C9KRD

120GB SSD for OS and basic programs

Samsung 840 Series 2.5 inch 120GB SATA III internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-7TD120BW

Regural hdd for storage

WD Blue 1 TB Desktop Hard Drive: 3.5 Inch, 7200 RPM, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64 MB Cache - WD10EZEX

SUM 460$. You can go lower by dropping the SSD and you also have the option to go mini-itx if you want! Tell me to list you the parts to change if you're interested!
 

Aristotelian

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i5 is overkill for Mom to check email. i3 or even Celeron will be more than enough.

This would be $327 from Newegg without Windows. You could add an SSD and stay under $500. I think you would get a bigger performance boost from SSD rather than going up to i5.

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Iltf
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Iltf/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Iltf/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Celeron G1610 2.6GHz Dual-Core Processor ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Biostar H77MU3 Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($86.97 @ Newegg)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Smart Tracer 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Hitachi 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224BB DVD/CD Writer ($15.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $327.91
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-03-08 11:15 EST-0500)
 

Aristotelian

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Jun 21, 2012
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I have a Celeron build for HTPC. I have never had any bottleneck with Youtube. Heck, even my single core Atom netbook plays Youtube flawlessly. There is no reason to get a quad core gaming CPU for an office build. I would rather have Celeron + SSD than i5.
 

twelve25

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Celeron is just a Pentium with 2MB instead of 3MB of cache.

The Ivy Bridge Celeron and Pentiums have a variant of the HD 2500 graphics which is pretty respectable for anything but gaming.

I'd get a B75 motherboard, 128GB SSD for the OS, 500-1000GB HDD for pictures, etc, Basic 80 plus silent PSU, Clean looking case, 4GB of cheap RAM and whatever intel chip you can afford with the money left over. If it is Celeron or an i3, your mom won't notice the diff.

Here's something I based off your original build:

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Ing5
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Ing5/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Ing5/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Pentium G2020 2.9GHz Dual-Core Processor ($49.99 @ Microcenter)
Motherboard: MSI B75MA-P45 Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($67.24 @ Amazon)
Memory: Crucial 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($27.25 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 840 Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($92.99 @ Adorama)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Antec 450W ATX12V Power Supply ($38.08 @ Amazon)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($18.98 @ Outlet PC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.98 @ Outlet PC)
Total: $484.49
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-03-08 14:13 EST-0500)



 
I built a similarly-purposed machine for my Mom a while back, using an Athlon II X2 255. She never complained about its speed (although I since upgraded it with a Phenom II X3 720BE anyway, just because I had it).
The point being, a Pentium 860G would be all the CPU she needs. Some web sites are accelerated, so it might be worth throwing a HD6450 in there. One of those efficient 300W-350W Seasonic PSUs ought to do for it. Round it out with 4GB-8GB of RAM, and a case she will like.
 
Solution
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